Here is the truth, responding to McGehee: The South was solidly Democratic up until the 1960s but of course also chock full of segregationists. When the Democratic Party began agitating for civil rights, Barry Goldwater came down South preaching "states' rights," which Southerners wanted to hear. After the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965 -- President Johnson supposedly said prophetically, "I have just lost the South for a generation" -- numerous Democratic politicians, Strom Thurmond the first, began switching to the GOP. The pro-civil-rights Republicans have basically been pushed aside.

To answer Mr. Austin, we all know that "conservative" and "right-wing" now are virtual synonyms; however, today's political right is not at all "conservative" in the classic sense.

I don�t get why it is so important for N.A.A.C.P. officials to lobby for Mr. Bush to speak to the group. We already know Mr. Bush and what Mr. Bush stands for. They (The NAACP) could have spent the time developing strategies to rebuild African-American communities with the billions of dollars African-Americans waste each year on useless products, rather than relying on government to fix everything.

The Washington Post reports, With the appearance, Bush will avoid becoming the first president since Warren G. Harding to snub the predominantly black organization throughout his term. After Katrina, Iraq, and years of Bush, why should the N.A.A.C.P. care about Bush�s place in history?

I guess in the big picture of things a new President of the United States or a new President of the N.A.A.C.P. for Black-America makes little difference.

2. Nice to know you have an enemies list. Such lists have such a fine pedigree.

3. The most basic problem you have seems to be what psychologists call projection.

4. There's an old aphorism that seems apropos here with respect to what people just know: "It ain't what people don't know that's the problem, it's what they know that just ain't so."

With that, I hereby retire from the sport of mud wrestling.

I have no idea where you found the straw for your argument.

Yes the republicans were instrumental in passing the civil rights legislation. Yes, if they were playing minority party politics then, like the democrats are today, the civil rights legislation would never have been passed.

Believe it or not, prior to FDR, the black vote was a monolithic GOP vote (something about slavery, civil rights amendments, democrats suppressing black votes, etc.).

I remember a quote by JC Watts about the difference in being a black politician in the GOP vs the democrats. Basically it was that when the GOP asked a black politician to a political dinner, they generally were asking him to speak at the dinner. The democrats preferred their black politicians to remain quiet.

Then Democrats on the other were merely protecting them from the impending disenfranchisment that would occur after franchisement.

Plus the Dems hadn't yet realized how many votes entitlement programs would snag them.

Conservatives in the South left the Democratic Party and joined the Goldwater-led GOP beginning in the 1960s in part due to their opposition to civil rights.

They joined the Republicans because of opposition to civil rights? The same Republicans who, more than Democrats in the then-Democrat-dominated Congress made possible the passage of the Civil Rights Act? Those Republicans?

But seriously, it's one thing to go back and forth about political and philosophical differences. It is entirely another to argue from historical ignorance and it all gets rather tiresome. But hey, there's always the ad hominem attacks to liven things up from the dreadfully tedious work of putting together a solid argument based upon facts and generally recognized principles of logic.

Jeepers.

Thanks for the clarity Mr. Joyner. We now know exactly the kind of person you are on these issues.

Yes -- one who judges people and organizations not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Thanks for the clarity Mr. Joyner. We now know exactly the kind of person you are on these issues.